Girls Vs Boys and some more anti stereotyping blabber!

Well, yes my anger to stereotyping women and men is unimaginable... people have a passion, one of my passions is to defy these stereotypes. I hate to live upto the standards of the "son of the house", why cant I be the "daughter of the house?" specially since nobody in my house has a problem with it!

I am appalled in the brazen manner in which top professionals look at gender, to quote few statements

 "Women make better PR people than journalists"

"Women cant do marketing"

"Advertising is too challenging and time consuming for women"

"Women want money to buy makeup"

"Intelligent women can work in banks" (yes!)

Then ofcourse the ever present "shaadi ke baad yeh career choice kaise manage karoge?"

And then suddenly in all this mess I see a ray of hope, the propagators of these myths are somehow far off from me... (i.e not of importance). I read this small snippet on a teachers desk..

For every boy who is expected to know everything, there is a  girl who is tired of her intelligence being taken for granted.

For every boy who does not want to be influenced by advertisements, there is a girl tired of having her self esteem lowered

For every girl who is tired of appearing weak, there is a boy who is looking strong even when he is not.

For every girl who wants to throw out her ezee bake oven, there is a boy who wishes he found one.

These lines give me a different perspective, still anti stereotyping but that we  face these difficulties only because of the societal expectation from gender roles.  We are all uncomfortable with how the world wants us to be and yet find it important to comply to them.

Women are tired of liking pink and lavender, hate sports, love gossip and waste their time discussing 'something of less importance'. 

While I cannot comment on men because I would again base it on a stereotype (I do not endorse hypocrisy either). But based on what I have seen, I know men who like to cook, take care of how they look, love a different colour other than blue and have a hobby like classical dance or Hindustani music... Honestly, they are more of a man than anyone who says that men should be butch and careless, not endorse arts, should love the colour blue, should have more guy friends than women, who think grooming is 'gay', how men should not be interested in cooking and should obsess over sports (to that list are -should be perverts and real cheap?)  :P. Sorry but as ridiculous as they are, I have heard them, laughed at them and later come to the understanding that the people who said it, were infact serious. 

As women we enjoy our own jokes, being careless, love what (by atleast by a conventional standard) is called  intellectual.

But most of the times its just not about being either... It's just knowing yourself you could be a "manly woman" or a "feminine man" or neither. In my case it's about being Maggie. The person that I am is a result of my thought and ideas. I am not a product of what people believe I am or I should be.... Frankly speaking in our minds we are free creatures its only in expression that we fail to actually endorse the truth. I have been a victim of this, I have been asked to socialize where i feel alien. I have been asked to "be a girl" and in these contexts,i could not answer back (damn! family events where people I don't know come.)

However, My experience still tells me that if we simply let people be without judging them, they will find comfort in our company. If we tell them what they should do as people and not a a gender or sex they will be more willing and happy to oblige. Our gender roles have evolved over a period of time but have stagnated only recently, I am sure the amazonian women would laugh at the "womenliness" and definition of "feminine" we have now.

Let people be!